


Heima

by movies_michelle



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 03:49:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5442281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/movies_michelle/pseuds/movies_michelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Athelstan has returned to Kattegat from the court of King Ecbert. Ragnar has some questions for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heima

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zelda_zee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zelda_zee/gifts).



> Thanks to keiko_kirin and dorinda for the betas and encouraging words!

Athelstan took a sip of his mead and looked around the room, feeling the comforts of the familiar wash over him. Since his return to Kattegat, he had realized how true what he had said to Princess Aslaug was: this was his family. They were everything opposite to King Ecbert's court: loud, raucous, full of laughter and true intentions. He had not realized how oppressive he had found the quiet machinations of Ecbert's table until he had returned here.

 

Not that it was all drink and comfort. He glanced towards Floki and found, as usual, the man staring at him with malicious zeal. What good will they had garnered directly after banding together to repel King Horik's forces and stand together with Ragnar had fled almost immediately in the aftermath. If anything, his suspicion and antipathy toward Athelstan seemed to have increased, his time with Ecbert and having worked as intermediary between him and Ragnar having apparently secured Floki's belief that Athelstan was a traitorous Christian who would destroy them all.

 

Athelstan tried once more to block out Floki's stare--he had certainly suffered worse in the last few months, though the malevolence of it still sent chills through him. Instead, he tried to focus elsewhere.

 

Glancing towards the dais, he saw Ragnar speaking with Bjorn, who was looking to the side at Thorunn. Athelstan did not know the girl well, but he knew that though she had previously been a slave, Princess Aslaug had freed her and now she was determined to be a shield maiden like Lagertha. He couldn't blame her--there were few who did not admire Lagertha greatly--but watching her with her newly braided hair and drinking with the other warriors, he felt a kinship for her: trying so hard to fit into a world she never expected the chance to be a part of.

 

Meanwhile, Princess Aslaug sat, staring out over her subjects and looking increasingly morose. Her mood was obviously not helped by her repeated failed attempts to gain Ragnar's attention, until it became obvious he was deliberately ignoring her. Her face scrunched up in anger, and soon she rose from her chair and swept out, Siggy following quickly behind her.

 

As Ragnar turned to watch his wife go, his expression blank, Athelstan wondered at the increasing distance between them. Ragnar had confided to him about his youngest son's deformity, and while his inability to connect with his son seemed to be a sticking point between him and Aslaug, he wasn't sure that was entirely all that was going on. All he knew was that the two seemed to be growing increasingly colder toward each other, and Ragnar seemed to find himself less able to speak with her or even stay in her presence for long. And while he spoke with Athelstan about many things, this was not something he felt inclined to share with him, at least so far.

 

He felt, suddenly, the familiar stab of longing as he looked at Ragnar, who now gazed into his cup as if it had somehow offended him. It was an old feeling, one which had frightened him at first, but eventually one he'd come to accept as one of the least of his sins. After all that he had done, all that had been done to him, he was not prepared to feel shame for the desire inside him.

 

"Come, priest," Torstein said, jostling his elbow and trying to pour more drink into Athelstan's jug. "You look thirsty!"

 

Athelstan smiled up at him, but shook his head, suddenly realizing how late it was and how weary he felt. "Not tonight, friend," he said, standing up and patting him on his shoulder, even as the man attempted to convince him to stay.

 

Athelstan noticed no one else tried to urge him to stay, but managed to avoid looking towards Floki, even as he heard a not-so-quiet mutter of contempt from him as he turned to leave the great hall. He did catch Ragnar's eye, who smiled and nodded at him. Athelstan returned a short bow of goodnight to his king, before taking his leave.

 

He walked into the night, wrapping his arms around himself to stave off the cold now that he was no longer so near the fire and so many warm and drunken bodies in the hall. He made his way as quickly as he could to his hut.

 

As he reached his lodgings, he wondered again at Ragnar's generosity upon his return of gifting him not only with a private room, but his own house, small though it was. Ragnar had been pleased as a boy, grinning at him as he showed him around the small building. For someone who had spent so much of his life in close quarters with others, Athelstan marveled at the idea of not sharing space with anyone else. But he found that the solitude suited him these days, and even as much as he was happy to have returned to this land and these people, he found comfort in the time it was just him and his thoughts, as tumultuous as they sometimes were.

 

Athelstan was just moving to stoke the fire and contemplating his evening prayers shortly after. Most of his prayers of late were fractured and scattered, directed at God the Father one minute and Odin the All-Father the next. He was working to find peace with that, but it was not always easy, and he felt a slight sense of relief as a knock came on his door, as unexpected as it was.

 

He stood as the door swung open to reveal Ragnar.

 

"You left, priest," Ragnar said, rocking slightly on his feet, a drinking horn still in his hand. The slight censure in his tone was teasing rather than truly chiding.

 

"It's been a long day," Athelstan said, smiling slightly at Ragnar, matching his inflection. "My king," he added pointedly, still enjoying Ragnar's new position, perhaps more than the man himself.

 

Ragnar smiled quickly then turned, as if finding something interesting in the sparsely furnished room. "Perhaps we shall be Ragnar and Athelstan here. Just here," he offered, and turned to the bed. He turned back around to look at Athelstan and waved his cup around. "Do you like your new rooms?" he asked.

 

It was a question he'd asked already a number of times, but Athelstan responded again honestly, "They suit me. Thank you."

 

Ragnar waved his thanks away as he had all the previous times, as if they were nothing, and walked over to where Athelstan's Bible lay open on his table. "I'm sure the rooms King Ecbert gave you were finer. He seemed to...value you," he said, without looking at Athelstan.

 

Athelstan was unsure of where Ragnar was headed with these comments, but he so rarely knew where Ragnar's mind would land. "I would like to think so. I think more he was...lonely," he said, though he was uncertain that was the right word. "There were not many he seemed able to share his thoughts with."

 

"Something else we have in common," Ragnar said, setting his drink down on the table. "So he shared his...thoughts with you?" Ragnar asked, back to him.

 

"Sometimes," Athelstan said, still unsure of the ground he was on. "Ragnar, what--" he began to ask, but Ragnar interrupted him.

 

"And he did dress you in such fine robes," Ragnar said.

 

Athelstan sighed as he realized what the problem was. It was not the first time that Ragnar had expressed what amounted to jealousy over Ecbert. Ragnar, for all his other virtues, did not share well with others. "The robes were very fine," Athelstan agreed with a small smile.

 

Ragnar looked at him sharply, then turned back to the Bible, flipping the pages as if he could read them. "One wonders why you would choose not to stay with him, after all that he gave you," he said to the book in front of him.

 

"As I said to Princess Aslaug," Athelstan said, honestly and affectionately. "You are my family."

 

There was an abrupt change in the air, however. An intensity suddenly coalesced as Ragnar turned, leaning against the table and pinning him with his gaze.

 

"Why did you come back with us, Athelstan?" Ragnar asked seriously, as if the answer mattered more than anything. "Did you not wish to stay? With Ecbert? With your people?"

 

Athelstan watched him carefully before answering, unable to escape the feeling of being stalked. Ragnar rarely dwelt on the past without an eye to some future plan. But there was something different about him tonight, a focus that he had only felt from him now and then, and he suddenly felt he was on a cliff's edge. "I had longed for it. To see my people and England again," he began, and paused, searching for a truth he'd wondered on himself. "I did not belong there anymore. And I found myself longing for this place."

 

"So, you what," Ragnar said, staring into him as if into his soul. "You _longed_ for Kattegat?"

 

Athelstan wished he could turn from him, but Ragnar had caught him in his stare, and it was impossible to look away. It did not unnerve him as much as it had in the beginning, but he still felt powerless, caught in that gaze, and when Ragnar began to move towards him, it was with the sinuous grace he always had. Ragnar, his own personal Serpent, silently offering Knowledge (which Odin sacrificed himself for, and for which Adam and Eve were Expelled) in exchange for everything: everything Athelstan was and possessed. "I longed for home," Athelstan said slowly, still caught. He still longed for home, somewhere he could belong, the family he told Aslaug he saw here, and Athelstan felt the falseness in his own words.

 

"Why did you come back with us?" Ragnar asked again, as if he hadn't spoken. When had he got so close?

 

"Why does it matter?" Athelstan asked, feeling more desperate, on the edge of something unknown and familiar and terrifying. This close to the Serpent, Athelstan thought he might have seen the Angel of Light shining through his eyes.

 

"It's all that matters," he responded flatly, and suddenly Ragnar was there, inches away, and Athelstan could feel his breath on his face. "Why did you come back?" he asked a third time.

 

"Because you asked me to," Athelstan, barely above a whisper and more honest than he'd allowed himself to be in years.

 

Ragnar smiled, showing all his teeth, but stayed where he was, so close Athelstan could see nothing but him, filling his vision the way he had filled his life.

 

"What," Athelstan said, trying to hold his breath, waiting, waiting. Not sure if he could ask the rest of his question.

 

"What?" Ragnar said, still smiling, swaying slightly in front of him, as if he knew how mesmerizing he was, deadly Serpent to the last.

 

"Why won't you take what you want?" Athelstan demanded, not sure what he was demanding, but frustrated and terrified, caught in the trap of Ragnar Lothbrok. He'd been in that trap since looking up into that face at Lindisfarne. Always. Forever. He wasn't the first to fall into that trap, he knew. But it was only lethal if you fought against it.

 

Athelstan found he was tired of fighting.

 

"It is not something you ask from a Freed Man," Ragnar said plainly, still smiling, still swaying, closer and farther away, back and forth.

 

Athelstan would have found it dizzying if he hadn't already felt on the edge of a whirlwind. "Not even a king?" he whispered and tried to keep himself from swaying to Ragnar's rhythm, just this once, just for a moment, to see if he could.

 

Ragnar's smile widened, if possible. "Especially not a king," he answered and stopped, waiting, demanding with his eyes. Making Athelstan choose. Making Athelstan move.

 

Expulsion may be worth this, he thought somewhere in the back of his mind.

 

"Damn you," he said clearly and without anger, and closed the distance between their mouths.

 

This he had done before, he thought somewhere, far back in a part of his mind which was not stunned by the knowledge of Ragnar's mouth and Ragnar tongue and Ragnar's teeth bumping into his, somewhere the hunger he'd felt for years wasn't flaring alive and stronger with a name now put to it. There had been the woman in Uppsala, whom he could only vaguely remember through a haze. She had not filled him with the fire Ragnar now did, though.

 

Athelstan broke away, gasping for air, even as Ragnar took the moment to bite at his jaw. Athelstan closed his hands around Ragnar's shoulders, unsure of what to do even as he felt Ragnar guide them towards the bed.

 

"Did Ecbert touch you like this?" he whispered in Athelstan's ear.

 

Athelstan froze, feeling the cold of the room, away from the fire, and the feeling of being used once more as a pawn. He knew that was his place, be be used by kings in ways he did not always understand, but it was not what he expected here. "Is that why you do this? Because you think Ecbert did?" he asked, pulling away to look in Ragnar's eyes.

 

Ragnar met his gaze, and the steel that was always there was visible past the lust. "Did he?" he demanded.

 

"I don't... I've never..." Athelstan searched for words that wouldn't come. It had been clear what Ecbert wanted at times, but it was also clear that in this, he was also like Ragnar: the illusion of choice was important to him, and he'd never moved beyond standing too close and holding too tightly.

 

Ragnar smiled again, the edges of the predator softened slightly by victory. Athelstan knew no one had ever looked at him like that before. It did not reassure him, but he couldn't help being drawn to it, as well. "I know. I had to ask," he said, before sitting on the bed. He looked up at Athelstan with complete seriousness and asked, "Do you trust me?"

 

Athelstan looked down at the man who'd been his captor, his master, his earl, and his king. If he was destined to be a pawn, he would at least choose this man, above all others, to be used by. "Yes," he said, in all honesty.

 

And the smile returned brighter than ever as he pulled Athelstan down to the bed with him.

 

Their mouths met and parted over and over, the hair of their beards catching here and there. Athelstan knew only vaguely what men did together, from hushed tones of damnation and ridicule at the abbey to raucous laughter over what might happen on a raid in the longhouse. And while he'd heard those same monks in the abbey move whisper quiet at night when everyone else was asleep, and knew some of those great warriors moved their pallets together as everyone looked away, he had never seen and knew little of what could be done to bring pleasure.

 

Ragnar, as always, seemed to know what he wanted and did not hesitate, rolling Athelstan beneath him even as he reached for the ties on Athelstan's trousers.

 

Athelstan tried to reach for Ragnar's pants, but was hushed by him. "Shh," he said with a biting kiss, his hands never stopping. "Let me take care of you, just once."

 

Athelstan closed his eyes against this tenderness, feeling as if he would fly to pieces if he had to look at Ragnar any more, but gasped loudly as Ragnar's hand reached bared flesh.

 

"There you are," Ragnar whispered triumphantly and squeezed tightly, causing Athelstan to cry out. Ragnar placed his hand over Athelstan's mouth, even as he let go to see to his own ties.

 

Athelstan panted in the reprieve, staring up at Ragnar, who cursed and knelt up when his own ties proved stubborn under eager fingers. He thought fleetingly of all the vows he'd made and broken in his life, but how he had pledged his life to this man, and felt stronger in that than any he'd made to God. He was likely damned, he knew, but he couldn't regret it, and he shouted in joy as Ragnar settled back down above him and took them both in his hand.

 

The other hand came back to smother his noise, even as Ragnar thrust against him with a grunt.

 

"Not so loud, my priest," Ragnar whispered, then bit his ear, causing another muffled groan. This seemed to amuse Ragnar, though, as Athelstan felt him grin against his neck, moving down with bites and mouthing even as he continued to thrust.

 

This was unlike anything Athelstan had ever felt, and he gripped at Ragnar's clothed shoulders as he thrust up, finally garnering a grunt of pleasure in return as his grip tightened around them.

 

"Next time," Ragnar whispered between grunts, the thrusts coming faster, his grip tighter, "we will stoke the fire first, and I will strip you down to see all of you."

 

"Yes," Athelstan whispered, and gripped his shoulders tighter as he felt himself near the edge.

 

"My priest," Ragnar said again, with more possession in his voice than ever there had been when he'd actually owned him. "My Athelstan."

 

"Yours," Athelstan agreed, and felt Ragnar stiffen and release against him at the word. Athelstan couldn't help but follow right behind.

 

Ragnar lay on top of him for a few moments, panting against him before rolling off as much as the small bed would allow.

 

Athelstan wondered as he caught his breath that he did not feel guilty, even now. So many sins with this one act, but for the first time in too long, he felt at peace. Surely the gods, all of them, had been leading him here all this time, he thought, staring up at his ceiling, even as he felt Ragnar reaching for his hand, his breath evening out. Surely the gods owed him this.

 

"Your own people did this to you," Ragnar said, and took his left hand between both of his own and traced the scar in the middle of his palm. "For what?"

 

Athelstan blinked. He knew little of these things, but it seemed a strange topic to broach now. But it wasn't the first time Ragnar had asked, either. Athelstan had tried to hide them at first, his wounds, his weaknesses, but a voyage in a boat across the sea did not leave much room for privacy. He would admit he felt a certain warmth at what he'd chosen to interpret as Ragnar's anger that Athelstan's people would hurt him so.

 

"Because some of them thought I was an apostate," Athelstan explained, his voice low and rough still. "They thought I had turned my back on God.”

 

Ragnar snorted and brought the hand to his face and nuzzled his palm. Athelstan shuddered at the tenderness, so much more unexpected than the passion of earlier. "I thought he was supposed to be everywhere, your god. Difficult to turn your back on," he mumbled into his hand, obviously amused by himself. He pulled away to look Athelstan in the eye, but gripped his hand tighter for a moment. "Would your sacrifice have pleased him? Your god?" he asked.

 

Athelstan swallowed, part of him longing to pull away, but knowing he would not. "No. I don't think so. Jesus Christ asks for love, not death," he said after a moment, barely a whisper.

 

Ragnar snorted again, this time in obvious disgust, but licked at his wound before pulling back again, settling the hand on his own chest without releasing it. "Then it would have been a waste," he said, switching to rubbing Athelstan's palm with one thumb.

 

As seductive as his tenderness was, Athelstan could not let that stand and said, pointedly, "You tried to sacrifice me once."

 

Ragnar waved away Athelstan's words as if they were unimportant. "That was different," he said airily.

 

Athelstan remembered the bitter taste of terror on his tongue, when he'd finally realized why he had been brought to Uppsala. "Because it would have pleased the gods?" he asked, feeling still an echo of that feeling of betrayal, strange and distant though it was between their naked bodies.

 

"Yes," Ragnar said bluntly and did not look away from Athelstan, caressing his face. "And there is no real sacrifice where there is no value," he continued in a softer, though still matter-of-fact voice.

 

Athelstan turned into his touch, almost against his will, and felt a strange surge of warmth at Ragnar's words, even while he recognized this was not how he should be reacting to a discussion of his own near-death. Perhaps it was put into perspective after he'd come so much closer to dying since then. Or perhaps it was because his reactions to Ragnar had always been wrong, by most people's understanding.

 

"Besides, I knew you would ruin it once you learned what was happening," Ragnar continued. "And they would then have to find a new sacrifice to take your place."

 

Athelstan caught himself smiling, allowing himself to reach up and trace the tattoos on the side of Ragnar's head. Ragnar pushed into his hand, like a dog into his master's pets. "And your honor would have been satisfied," he said, offering his own theory on the past, "having offered something of worth, even if I wasn't prepared to offer it freely."

 

Ragnar nodded and hummed, obviously still pleased with his own cleverness as much as Athelstan's caresses. He closed his eyes, settling in for sleep.

 

Athelstan took a deep breath against his own desires and dropped his hand. "Shouldn't you return to your own bed?" he said, knowing it was for the best.

 

Ragnar did not open his eyes, but waved his hand before huddling closer.

 

Athelstan so wanted to follow him, but... "What if someone misses you?" he said, not saying 'such as your wife?' as he was trying to avoid thinking of that.

 

Ragnar muttered something which sounded like "I'm the king," before slipping into slumber.

 

Athelstan smiled at him, and decided to follow one more time.

 

***


End file.
